


i think you think too much of me

by retroria



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/F, Lots of Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-08-23 17:16:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16623110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retroria/pseuds/retroria
Summary: Toni and Cheryl have been best friends since they were eight years old, but when Toni is assigned medication early in her life to cope with anxiety, and Cheryl slowly becomes more closeted as the years go by, Addderall becomes Toni’s new best friend as Cheryl slowly loses herself to the enchantments of forever hiding her identity.or;Toni gets addicted to drugs as Cheryl forces herself further into compulsive heterosexuality





	1. Chrysanthemum

**Author's Note:**

> hi! so yes this is a new fic I'm trying out and it focuses on their younger years for the first few chapters but i promise if you stick with it and see this through, we get very juicy and angsty very soon!
> 
> This is also not a fic for their faint of heart when it comes to angst, consider yourselves warned. 
> 
> Enjoy!

 

The whole wide world seems like a big place, full of opportunities and other gadgets and tools for the future when you’re little, it doesn’t ever dawn upon the young minds that maybe… just  _ maybe  _ there are limitations to what man can do. 

 

It certainly did not dawn upon Toni up until she found herself, at the mere age of eight, cornered and surrounded by Veronica Lodge, Betty Cooper, and Midge Klump. 

 

Their arms crossed tightly over their chests as Betty took the stance in the middle, one eyebrow quirked and twig like legs bent into shape so she looked more intimidating when she rested all of her weight on one hip. 

 

Toni didn’t even hear all of the insults they threw her way, only catching a few of the new ones like  _ ‘serpent scum’  _ and  _ ‘southside low life’  _ before she felt her butt hit the ground and her new pants dirtied in a flame of mud. 

 

She bit down on her lower lip, suppressing a whimper, pushing all those feelings that arose within her, back down to where they came from. That’s what her uncle had taught her all her life ever since her mother and father had abandoned her, he had taught her to keep quiet and take the pain. 

 

So that’s what she did. 

 

Her bile remained encased tightly in her throat, she would rather burn her own vocal chords than let the Trials and Tribulations Trinity know that she was  _ hurt  _ by their actions. 

 

Soon enough, with her fist enclosed and collecting mud within cracks of her hands, the three of them  _ finally  _ left her alone when they realized they weren’t going to get anything out of her. Toni wished she knew why they did this  _ every damn day,  _ the same stunt, the same name calling, the same attempting to get a rise out of poor little Toni who came from the wrong side of the tracks. 

 

“Why do you let them do that?”

 

Toni’s head snapped back, her eyes boring holes into a curious redhead standing next to her.

 

She kept her mouth glued shut, clenching her jaw tight, and removing herself from the mud. 

 

She came away from it with a wet  _ thwack  _ and rose to her full height, grimacing a little when she had to wipe the viscous liquid from her pants and get it all over her hands instead, smudging it entirely all over herself. 

 

What was she going to tell her uncle when she got home?

 

How was he going to react when he realized that she had dirtied the  _ one  _ new article of clothing that he had gotten her for her birthday?

 

Toni swallowed thickly. 

 

“Are you deaf?” the redhead remarked again, her voice squeaking, and causing Toni to pause. “I asked you a question. Mother says it’s awfully rude to ignore those who want your attention.”

 

Toni cocked her head to the side, intrigued. 

 

She knew Cheryl Blossom, of course she did, everyone knew her. But never in her three years of knowing these kids since kindergarten, did Toni Topaz expect to see the redhead stand in front of her and actually attempt to converse with her. 

 

“I don’t know,” Toni grumbled, still looking down at her toes. “I let them do it because they’re them.”

 

“That’s a lame answer.”

 

Toni felt the icky mud drip down between her fingers and free fall towards the even muddier ground. 

 

“I’m a lame person.”

 

“You need to fight back,” she pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest with a huff. 

 

“I can’t.”

 

“Sure you can, you’re tougher than them.”

 

Toni shrugged and stepped out of the mud, not feeling too super or tough after feeling the mud slide between her pant legs and pool over her shoes. 

 

“Why do you care?”

 

Cheryl shrugged. 

 

“Mother always says to help those in need.”

 

Toni regarded her with a strange look, who was this girl to tell her that she was  _ charity?  _

 

“I don’t need your help,” she scoffed, shaking Cheryl’s words off of her, letting them roll in thick drops off her back like the mud between her fingers. 

 

“It sure looks like you do,” Cheryl pointed out in her nasally child voice. 

 

“Well I  _ don’t,”  _ Toni grumbled. 

 

Then, out of the corner of her eye, like an angel materializing from thin air, Cheryl zipped to her side, one second she was there and the next she here, pressing her hand into the backside of Toni’s shirt, wiping off a liberal amount of mud that Toni would’ve ended up plastering to the bendy blue plastic of the elementary school seats. 

 

Toni gulped and twisted back to look at herself. 

 

“Thanks,” she whispered. 

 

Cheryl smiled, just a hint of it, making the corner of her lip gloss covered lips quirk upwards. 

 

“I’ll help you get rid of Betty and them, I promise.”

 

And then, she stuck her little hand out, beckoning for Toni to slip her dirtied and mud caked one into it. 

 

Toni wondered if  _ that  _ was when she fell in love. 

 

So of course, she hesitantly shook Cheryl Blossom’s hand, silently sealing the fate of the rest of her life with a simple action. 

 

“We’re best friends now,” Cheryl announced, dusting herself off with a quick wave as one of the teachers blew a whistle to indicate the end of recess. 

 

“We are?” Toni asked, her hope lighting a fire under her chest. 

 

She’d never had a  _ best friend  _ before, she had Sweet Pea and Fangs on the Southside but she hardly knew them because of how little time she spent out and about the South. 

 

“I’m going to tell them off, for you, and then you’ll do the same for me,” Cheryl promised, waiting patiently as Toni hobbled slowly over the playground. 

 

And Toni didn’t question it, because sure enough, the next day, there was not a single peep from the three girls who had made it their life goal to make Toni’s a living nightmare. They disappeared from her young life,  _ poof,  _ a problem solved. 

 

Secretly, she wondered if Cheryl  _ was  _ some angel, some problem solving, mathematical genius angel. 

 

From that day forward, Cheryl became just that to Toni, an immovable object, never deterred by the force of whatever negativity was thrown in the Serpent girl’s direction. She protected Toni, just as Toni protected her. 

 

No one told Toni to learn it early that being friends with Cheryl, came with a few concessions on her part. 

 

No one ever told Toni how much being Cheryl’s friend would  _ hurt  _ in the end. 


	2. Draw me a Portrait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More backstory on Cheryl and Toni’s young life before things become mega complicated and angsty but dont worry y’all, we’re getting there soon! Enjoy!

**I.**

For all those years that Toni knew Cheryl, she knew that Cheryl didn’t like to bend, it was her way, or the highway.

Fight it as much as she wanted to, yes she would, but in the end, Cheryl would snap her fingers, raise her eyebrow, and look at Toni in that way that made her feel so big and yet so small at the same time, and Toni felt herself mold to whatever it was that her best friend needed.

“Tell me more about you living on the Southside,” Cheryl spoke quietly one day, her legs hanging off the edge of a raised platform which was meant to be a landing where kids could enter slides.

“What do you want to know?” Toni asked, looking directly up at the clouds.

If she tried hard enough she could just make out the fluffy corners of a unicorn.

“People, things, what it’s like. Is it different from here, TT?”

_TT… that was new._

Toni didn’t comment on it, she could tell Cheryl would be the type of person who hated being questioned.

“It’s not like here,” Toni confirmed quietly looking up at the clouds, tracing the soft edges of a cloud snake with her mind’s eye. “The North is clean and rich and kinda perfect. It’s not like that where I live. I’m friends with these two boys, Sweet Pea and Fangs, they’re great. Sometimes we go for walks by the river, they make me feel good about living there.”

She didn’t know what else to say, her eight year old vocabulary was limited, all she wanted to say was that the Southside was _disgusting and gross_ , but she also wanted to say that it was great, and it was grand, and it had all the allure in the world.

But she didn’t have the words.

Cheryl remained silent.

“Tell me about yourself,” Toni prompted, filling the silence.

Sometimes she and Cheryl did that, they went for long amounts of time sitting next to each other without talking, Toni didn’t know any other friends in their grade who could do that, who could communicate without really communicating.

“I have loads of money,” Cheryl started, quietly. “You probably already know that though.”

Toni giggled.

“Yeah, I kinda did.”

Out of the corner of her cloud surfing eye, she could’ve sworn she saw Cheryl crack a smile.

And then there was a crack of silence, a quick whip which left Toni winded for a minute, unsure of what Cheryl was going to say next-

“Toni I don’t… I don’t think I like boys.”

And that made her snort.

“Who does?” Toni grinned, turning her head and eyes away from the clouds to look down at Reggie Mantle and Archie Andrews throwing punches at each other on the grass a few paces away.

But there was a somber, angry, silence from beside her.

“Cher-” Toni began again, eyebrows furrowing.

The whistle blew, indicating yet another recess wrap up, and Toni watched in awe at how quickly Cheryl snapped up and slipped through bars and under platforms to reach the woodchips beneath.

The girl was liquid gold on her feet, sliding through life with ease that was unimaginable to poor little Toni who could barely hold her own in front of three eight year old girls on a playground.

By the time Toni had raised herself onto her elbows and fathomed getting down to follow the whistle, Cheryl had already slotted herself between Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge, falling into an easy conversation with them.

Toni bit down on her bottom lip.

Over the top of the gold head of hair that Betty swung around in a tight ponytail, Toni caught Cheryl’s eyes, dark and mysterious, far too troubled and angry for a child of their age. Far too well versed in the struggles of life for being so little.

It was then, when Toni trailed after the back row of kids filing into the school, unaccompanied by her rapidly becoming best friend, that she realized Cheryl had told her something crucial to both of their beings.

And Toni failed to comprehend what it was that Cheryl meant.

Didn’t everyone dislike boys?

She never spoke about this kind of things with the other kids, she realized, her sandals slapping against the black tar as she slowly slipped past the exit doors back into the school. Toni had always just assumed that all girls were like this, all girls felt something for other girls just as much as they did for other boys.

Wasn’t that why Veronica and Betty were always attached at the hip?

She slowed her stroll as she neared the door of the classroom where Cheryl was, watching from afar as the redhead smiled and played around with Midge Klump, doing classwork dutifully, pretending like nothing was wrong.

And yet, when Cheryl looked up, their eyes meeting in a quick young electricity of intense voltage, Toni felt it.

She felt the pure sadness radiating off of Cheryl.

She wanted to yell, she wanted to rewind time and make it so that she could remind Cheryl that it was okay, it was okay to not like boys, even if Toni didn’t quite understand the implications of what her best friend was trying to tell her.

But she couldn’t, she never did a single thing, and she watched Cheryl slowly lose the light from right in front of her eyes as the classroom door was swung shut by a disgruntled teacher.

**II.**

Fast forward a few years, and Toni found herself sitting with her hands fidgeting in her lap, eyes darting nervously from one corner of the room to the other.

She was in the nurse’s office, she had been called down after several episodes, as her teacher called them, and apparently they were ‘heavily concerned about her well being’.

“Antoinette Topaz?” the straight backed honey colored lady called her, eyebrows crinkling together and forming a crease in the middle of her forehead. Toni followed the crease down her face, down to her lips which were curled unpleasantly into something that she probably assumed was comforting to a thirteen year old in a school nursing office.

Toni slithered off her seat, easy like liquid gold, and slunk over to the somewhat nice lady.

Her mouth remained glued shut, her hands shoving themselves deep into the pockets of her pants as she gazed up at the woman’s face.

Over a course of an hour, Toni listened to the woman, she spoke about anxiety disorders and mental illnesses and things that Toni had never even heard about. She listened with her eyes rather than her ears, to be honest, training her retinal attention on the crease within the leathery skin of her school nurse, while her ears wandered.

She listened to the ding of a door opening on the outside of the office, she listened to the low hum of printers constantly running and printing paper with colorful ink as well as black ink, she listened to the murmur of hushed words being exchanged the office workers like they were in a world of their own.

Secrets that Toni would never know.

That made her smile.

She wondered if other people looked at her and Cheryl that way, when they exchanged hushed whispers in the hallway about how ugly Betty’s pink blouse was or about how the whole school knew that Veronica Lodge’s dad was doing things so illegally that it was baffling he hadn’t been arrested yet.

They would never know what Toni Topaz and Cheryl Blossom were talking about, no matter how much they wanted to.

“Antoinette… are you listening to me?”

Her ears trained back on the nurse, and of course, no, she hadn’t been listening, She was thinking, day dreaming, about the one girl who could calm her like no school nurse could.

The only remedy she needed.

“Uh, yeah,” Toni stuttered quietly, glancing quickly to the right of the nurse, focusing her eyes on the green of the room, the disgustingly happy projection of throw up, before returning to the face of the woman.

The nurse raised a skeptical eyebrow but didn’t question her.

“So we’re going to be putting you on some medication, Adderall I think, would do you some good, I already consulted with your general physician, as it was supplied in your official files of course,” the nurse began again, rattling off the information.

Toni sat up straighter in her chair.

No, no, she couldn’t take medication.

Medication cost money, money that her uncle didn’t have, money that he would beat her black and blue for even thinking of spending.

They were barely getting by as it was, Toni couldn’t even fathom the idea of having to bring this up to him.

“I can’t,” Toni interjected quietly.

The nurse halted, her flow of words stilling for a second.

“You can’t?”

Toni’s hands fidgeted harder, god how she wished Cheryl was here to help her through this, to hold her hand and remind her that it would be okay.

“I… we don’t have the money,” she admitted ashamedly. “My uncle can’t afford medicine, especially monthly like this.”

The leather in her face sagged, and Toni wondered if she was sending her a look of pity.

“Oh honey, we already talked to your uncle about it,” she shook her head, left to right and back. “We understand your monetary status which is why we’re allowing those costs to be covered under a certain financial aid plan offered to our struggling students.”

The words flew directly over Toni’s head.

All she heard was, we already talked to your uncle about it.

She already felt her skin swell into an angry swollen mark of a belt strap welting down over her back. This was going to get her in so much trouble-

“So now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” the nurse smiled, pulling Toni’s attention back again.

There was a small plastic cup in her hand now, and Toni wondered where the hell she had even pulled out that out so fast from.

Toni didn’t remember much of it after that, she upended the cup quietly and let two whole pills slide down the back of her throat with the nurse watching curiously out of the corner of her eye, and then she was sent on her way as the lunch bell rang.

Shortly after taking the pills, Toni realized with a dizzying sense of happiness, that it felt kind of like floating on a cloud.

Her feet skittered across the linoleum tile floors of their cafeteria as she tried to find her way to Cheryl, which should’ve been easy, but with the drug in her system making all the edges of everything so damn fuzzy, Toni had to resort to simply looking for a fiery head of red.

Of course, instead, it was Cheryl who found her.

“TT! I’ve been looking all over for you, you weren’t in class when I went to pick you up, where were you?” Cheryl asked, skipping her hand between Toni’s torso and bicep, holding on to the muscle there.

Toni’s eyes lazily skirted to Cheryl.

God she was so _pretty_ \- had she asked her a question? Toni couldn’t tell, not with her being so distracting my pretty-

“Toni?” Cheryl prompted, her eyes widening in worry.

Toni giggled.

She loved hearing her name come from Cheryl’s mouth.

“Toni I swear to god, I heard that Reggie and Moose were getting high behind the bleachers, and I swear-“ she dropped her voice, glancing around carefully. “I swear, if you’re baked, I’m calling your uncle.”

Toni wrinkled her nose.

“Reggie and Moose are gross.”

At that, Cheryl huffed gently with a laugh.

“I was with the nurse,” Toni drawled gently, pointing with a feeble finger out the door where they could see the leathery blonde watching them with distinct concentration from behind the clean glass window.

“What did they do to you in there?”

Cheryl’s hand squeezed Toni’s bicep comfortingly, and even through the small haze of happy drugs they had put her on her way with, she could feel that.

She needed to feel that.

“Mmm, they gave me drugs,” Toni whispered, bowing in close to Cheryl, like they were sharing secrets.

Which they were, no one else would ever know the reason behind Toni’s sudden aloof demeanor, no one but Cheryl.

Cheryl’s mouth tightened into a line as they took a seat with Betty, Veronica, and Midge in the front line of the cafeteria.

Toni didn’t like sitting there, she never had, but with a flourish of Cheryl’s magic wand, Betty and company seemed to be rather accepting of her.

Or at least, that’s what they showed.

“I’m concerned, T,” Cheryl spoke with a pout, pulling a ham sandwich out of her lunch bag and dropping it in front of Toni.

That’s how they always functioned, Cheryl the half to Toni who supplied, who provided sustenance, and Toni… well she remained largely unsure of what she was to Cheryl but she knew that Cheryl needed her.

Toni hummed happily, unwrapping the Saran which the sandwich was tightly wound up in.

“I wonder if the sandwich ever gets to breathe,” she spoke out loud, unaware of the rapidly maturing and alert popular girls around her.

She missed the way Betty shot Veronica a questioning look, but what she didn’t miss was Midge shaking her head in Toni’s direction as Cheryl elbowed the girl.

She never missed anything Cheryl did.

“I’m worried about what they’re giving you, TT,” she spoke quietly, her voice low and worried. “You’re never like this.”

“Never like what?” Toni asked, cocking her head too far to the right and almost clocking Veronica on the side of her head.

Cheryl raised an eyebrow at the miscalculation.

“Like that, you’re not you, Toni. I don’t think they’re giving you the right stuff,” Cheryl pointed out, brows knit together painfully, bunching and creating fissures in her smooth forehead.

“I’m great,” Toni grinned, shooting her best friend a wink.

“Are you sure?” Cheryl whispered, leaning in closer.

Toni’s breath stuttered, and for a minute the foggy sense of happiness smeared over her brain thanks to the drug dissipated.

They were so close, in front of all the girls at their table-

But it seemed that the same thought struck Cheryl’s mind as she pulled away gently, putting more space between them, and like curtains falling back in place, the fog took up the space which she left empty.

“I’m fine,” Toni responded shakily, her head bowing as she looked down at the pizza boat in front of her.

And she was.

As much as she could be.

Cheryl gulped and nodded, hiding away behind a curtain of red.

“Are you guys okay?” Midge piped, her eyebrow quirked and her juice box poised dubiously in front of her lips.

Before Toni could interject with something half assed and lazy, and most probably incoherent considering her current medicated state, Cheryl jumped in, hellfire and hounds at her feet, ready to thwart any suspicions that could be buzzing in the heads of her classmates.

“She’s fine, I’m fine, we’re fine,” Cheryl zipped, the words leaving her mouth slower than her lips formed them.

And Toni nodded, bending to Cheryl’s will.

If she said that they were fine, then they were fine.

Absolutely fine.


	3. High School Hiccups

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer to the serious angst of high school ladies and gents! Enjoy!

**i.**

For Toni, most of her young life that she could remember, had been spent by Cheryl’s side. Even now, at the age of fourteen, summer before freshman year, the  _ biggest  _ transition of their young lives so far, she was spending it lying by a poolside with her pinky dipped in the water as Cheryl swam around inside of it. 

 

It was the Thornhill pool, grandeur in its truest nature, and a quiet getaway for two young girls who wanted nothing to do with the outside world for now. 

 

“What do you think high school is going to be like, Cheryl?” 

 

Toni’s voice rang out concretely through the backyard of Cheryl’s manor, and for a split second she heard the retreating splashing of her best friend’s swimming cease, and then  it started again, this time back in the direction of Toni. 

 

She was returning to shore. 

 

Toni smiled. 

 

She got no answer, just the gentle splashing of water as she heard Cheryl get closer and closer until she felt the drops of water splatter onto the side of her face, causing her to flinch gently. 

 

Toni’s eyes remained closed underneath her sunglasses, the shifty shade from the sun which blared down on the rest of her body, slowly turning her a darker brown through natural tanning. 

 

Besides, she didn’t need to open her eyes to know where Cheryl was, her sixth sense tingled every time the redhead got so much as within fifty miles of her. 

“I don’t know T… I’m not really looking forward to it,” Cheryl answered, her voice sounding miserable.

 

Toni peeled her eyes back and shoved the glasses to the top of her head, glancing over at Cheryl who wrapped a towel around her waist and migrated gently to the freshly mowed grass by the edge of the cement side a few feet away. 

 

“What?” Toni called out, shoving herself onto her elbows and then off of the pavement, following after her best friend. “What do you mean you’re not looking forward to it? This is literally all you’ve talked about for the last few months.”

 

“It’s… well, it’s  _ nothing  _ really,” Cheryl gulped, stretching herself out on the blanket she laid under the sun for some prime time tanning. “I just don’t want you to think of me as some bitch when we go in, ya know? Things are going to change, TT, big time.”

 

“I could never think of you as some bitch, Cher,” Toni smiled gently, the back of her mind buzzing. 

 

She could never think of Cheryl as anything but the best thing that had ever happened to her. Not only had Cheryl offered her own home up as a sanctuary for Toni to run to every time staying at her uncle's trailer became too overwhelming, Cheryl had become Toni’s safe place. 

 

She didn’t think she could hate the girl even if she tried. 

 

“No, I know…” Cheryl shook her head, like Toni was missing the point completely. “You don’t understand, do you?”

 

“Don’t understand  _ what _ Cher? You’re not making any sense.”

 

The red haired girl gulped, hard, before turning to look at Toni who had situated herself comfortably on the grass beside her best friend. 

 

“The social hierarchy, Toni.”

 

It was no secret to Toni that her best friend was a power fiend, she fed off of the thirst that other people had for her presence, she thrived off of knowing that there were as many people who wanted her as there were who wanted to  _ be  _ her. But this was the first time Toni was ever hearing Cheryl address it so directly, this was the first time Toni had ever thought it would get in the way of their friendship. 

 

“What about it? You’re head bitch, Cheryl, no one fucks with you now and they won't when we graduate,” Toni shrugged, squinting at her best friend who glinted in the sunlight. 

 

Cheryl laughed softly, her eyes growing fuzzy around the edges, as she reached over and ran her knuckles across Toni’s cheek. 

 

Toni just smiled, letting her best friend shower her in rare shows of affection. 

 

It wasn’t that Cheryl hated giving Toni affection, in fact, they were more likely to be touching than they were to not be, and everyone in their school knew that too. But it was rare for Cheryl to do something out of side hugs or linking their pinkies together in a gentle push and pull for their bodies. 

 

Cheryl almost treated those kinds of things like they were outside the realm of possibility for two girls. 

 

Toni soaked it up like a sponge. 

 

And then Cheryl’s eyes grew dark again as her hand stilled, moving away. 

 

“You’re the only one who thinks that, Toni. When we go to high school, we’re going to have to start over, right back to square one. No one is going to think I’m head bitch there, I have to build my rep again, and… high school is way bigger than middle school, TT. If I have to start from scratch, I’m going to need the help of a few other people,” Cheryl spoke, her voice cold and solemn, her palm still warm though as it clasped gently onto Toni’s wrist.

 

Panic welled in Toni’s chest. 

 

“Be friends with  _ who?”  _

 

“You know who, Toni. I’m not only going to have to sit at a table with Betty and Veronica and those oafs Reggie, Archie, and Jughead, but we’re actually going to have to be a  _ part  _ of whatever they are,” she monotoned, like she was laying down her warpath, envisioning it in her mind’s eye, thinking of all the deeds she would have to do in order to get where she needed to be.

 

“Or it could just be the two of us, ya know?” Toni whined quietly.

 

Why did it have to be everyone? Why couldn’t just the two of them make it through high school together without getting caught up in all that other stuff that so many before them had and so many after them would? 

 

All Toni had ever needed was Cheryl, ever since they were little, ever since that first day on the playground when Cheryl had vowed to make sure that Betty and Veronica would lay off of Toni’s back in exchange for her friendship. 

 

And so far, Toni had believed that the same worked for Cheryl too. 

 

She didn’t realize she could’ve been  _ wrong  _ this whole time. 

 

“God, TT, you have no idea how much I wish that could’ve been it,” Cheryl whispered, pressing the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. “But it’s not  _ enough.  _ You know my parents, they would want me to be the top of everything, they would want me to dominate, just like they want Jason to dominate.”

 

Oh, right. 

 

Jason, Cheryl’s brother, and her fucked up family. 

 

Toni had heard only a bit about them over the five years they’d been friends. Cheryl was almost as reluctant to talk about her familial situation as she was to show affection that could be misconstrued into something more in public. 

 

They put insane amounts of pressure on both her and her brother, and while Toni didn’t see much of Jason Blossom considering he chose to spend most of his time outside of the house, sometimes for days on end, she knew enough to know that Cheryl adored her brother just as much as she despised him. 

 

On one particularly emotional occasion, Toni recalled that Cheryl had decided to try some of the liquor in her parent’s cabinet and had called Toni over to join. Toni hadn’t drank with her because the anxiety meds that she took didn’t allow her to, especially since she’d  _ just  _ taken them that night, and yet she had played host to some of Cheryl’s worst demons that night.

 

Her red haired best friend had spewed more about her life that night than she ever had in the five years of knowing each other. 

 

Toni gulped and pushed the memories away from her mind, anything concerning Cheryl getting hurt deeply disturbed her. 

 

“We’re not enough?” Toni stated more than asked, really. 

 

“No, god Toni, no,” Cheryl shook her head, satin locks flying by her face as she almost broke her neck trying to veto what Toni had just said. “You’re more than enough  _ for me,  _ but we can’t last through high school like that. I can’t-  _ we  _ can’t afford to have that happen to us now, not after everything we’ve worked so hard for.”

 

“But I’m not enough to get you through the rest of our school lives,” Toni concluded by herself, pulling her body into a slightly fetal position, her head ducking between her knees as she wrapped her arms around her legs. 

 

She resorted to going into these positions whenever things got too overwhelming for her, funnily enough it had been the school nurse who had told her that it would be best for her to try doing this when her anxiety started getting the best of her. 

 

For once, the school nurse had come in handy. 

 

“Toni? Baby, please look at me,” Cheryl pleaded, and Toni felt her arm fall comfortingly on her back, rubbing up and down. 

 

But Cheryl made no moves to push Toni out of her regressive motions, instead letting the girl ride it out, just rubbing up and down her back and pressing soft kisses to the shell of her ear. 

 

She couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but by the end of it, Toni finally pulled her head out from between her knees, and then immediately felt herself being pushed back onto the grass as Cheryl leaned over her, eclipsing the sun with her head. 

 

She looked ethereal, eyes sparkling brighter than the sun ever could, rays of the powerful helium ball sprouting out from all sides of her head, making her look like an angel with her most powerful halo. 

 

Toni felt like she could hardly breathe, with Cheryl hovering above her like that, looking more godly than she ever had before.

 

“Cheryl…” Toni whimpered, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her best friend’s ear.

 

“I’m going to make these years the best for both of us, TT,” Cheryl vowed, her voice determined, her eyes reflecting the pain like her words never could. 

 

“You promise?” Toni rasped, gulping. 

 

Cheryl nodded, and for a split second, her tongue darted out between her lips to wet the flesh there.

 

Toni couldn’t  _ breathe _ . 

 

“I promise.”

 

And then, she leaned down and kissed her. 


	4. Collective Unconscious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A second update today because I'm like four chapters ahead in my writing, so, happy monday :)

**I.**

 

That first kiss was something they didn’t talk about again for a long time. 

 

Once it was done, Toni had watched as Cheryl leaned away, the galaxy shining in her eyes, a smile gracing those beautifully soft and plump lips of hers. 

 

Until her phone buzzed, and pulled them both away from their quiet little world where they had just kissed, and where Cheryl wanted Toni just as much as Toni loved her. And then just like that, it was over. 

 

Cheryl went back to complaining about how Nick St. Claire, some random dummy from a Greendale school, was blowing her off for Veronica, and Toni went back to looking at the clouds, drawing out different things that she could see. 

 

Except this time, in almost every cloud, all she could see was the angelic and sharp structure of Cheryl’s face, so close to hers only seconds ago, their lips pressed together in an innocent kiss that eighth graders shared, the summer before they began their ascension into adults.

  
  


High school came, and it swept both of them up in god speed winds, taking both their time and their sanities with it. 

 

Toni always clung to Cheryl like grease to the bottom of a pan, their arms always pressed together and hands linked inconspicuously as they walked down the hall, Betty and Veronica on the other side of Cheryl, all of them wrapped up in some conversation about how they could make their way into the social ranks the fastest. 

 

“Don’t ever interrupt them when they’re talking, TT,” Cheryl had warned her, and Toni shivered at how close it resembled when Toni would hear the Blossom parents giving Cheryl instructions. 

 

“I wouldn’t talk to them anyways,” Toni grumbled back. 

 

“No I know, sweetheart,” Cheryl smiled warmly, reaching up to drag her hands through the bottom of Toni’s brunette locks. “But even to me… if they’re talking to me and you have an idea, just hold it in. They don’t like being interrupted.”

 

“They don’t like  _ me,  _ Cheryl,” Toni rolled her eyes, shoving her best friend off of her very gently, creating some space between them.

 

It had almost begun to burn Toni now, that emotional feeling that used to feed on her insides was turning into something physical and tangible, every time Cheryl got too close, Toni felt like she couldn’t breathe. 

 

“That’s not true,” Cheryl lied. 

 

“They  _ tolerate  _ me because they like you, Cheryl,” Toni pointed out, with one eyebrow raised. “And don’t talk to me like I’m a fucking child, Cheryl. I may not always be present because of the meds I take, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

 

“Toni I never  _ said  _ you were stupid,” Cheryl gulped, her eyebrows knitting together in fear as her mouth formed a frown. “I’m just telling you the guidelines of how to deal with our friends because you clearly don’t pay enough attention to figure it out yourself.”

 

Toni scoffed and rolled her eyes, feeling the panic of having her first real fight with Cheryl manifest itself as pure anger. 

 

“There you go again, acting fucking condescending and treating me like I’m in need of special help or some shit,” Toni growled, reaching behind her to flick her locker shut. 

 

“Toni I’m not-”

 

“And they’re  _ your  _ friends, not mine.”

 

“Toni!” Cheryl laughed incredulously. “You act like I’m not doing this for the betterment of both of our social statuses!”

 

Toni shook her head, a humorless chuckle gaining momentum in her throat. 

 

“I never asked you to do that, Cheryl.”

 

“You’re my best friend, TT, I would never let you just sit there at the bedrock of the pit while these bottom feeders took bites out of you,” Cheryl pointed out, crossing her hands over her chest resolutely. 

 

_ Who needs them when you do that enough for everyone?  _ Toni thought to herself, but bit the comment back into her cheek, pressing it there with her tongue. 

 

Cheryl would never forgive her for that, and despite all that Toni was doing, she knew that she wouldn’t emotionally last a second without her best friend there to lean on. 

 

Toni breathed in deeply, and expelled the breath through her nostrils, a calming technique which seemed to work for her somewhat. 

 

The edges of her vision were beginning to become more defined now, and the drug was wearing off, Toni realized with a start. That could prove problematic, she couldn’t handle having these many emotion about Cheryl, in the middle of the school day, without having her pills there to aid her through it. 

 

The fuzzy soft feeling of being blanketed and numb, so very numb, cold to the way Cheryl touched her, was the way Toni preferred it. She didn’t want to feel every stab or pinch of pain every time Cheryl shied away from telling off their friends when they subtly picked on Toni, she didn’t want to become acquainted with the feeling of jealousy whenever she saw Cheryl flirting with whoever was her victim of choice that day. 

 

She didn’t want it. 

 

She couldn’t handle it. 

 

Cheryl reached for her, suddenly, and Toni gasped at the pure feeling of electricity that rapidly covered her veins in thick bands, pulsing over and over again, 

 

“Toni, are you okay?” Cheryl whispered, bringing their bodies close together, 

 

_ Stay away from me, please please, stay away from me.  _

 

Toni nodded. 

 

“Yeah I’m fine,” she lied, following it with a thick gulp. “I need to get to class.” 

 

Before Cheryl could open her mouth, Toni turned on her heels and sped away, her skin standing on edge and hair follicles quivering with every step, only relaxing when she had finally gotten a good few paces away from the reason of her anxiety. 

 

She slid into the bathroom, and dropped her bag on the counter, checking underneath every stall before facing herself finally in the mirror. 

 

The gasp that fell from her mouth was nothing short of terrified. 

 

She looked  _ dog tired.  _

 

Her hand traced gently over the bags under her eyes, caused by the sleepless nights she spent in her uncle’s trailer, an uncle who was becoming steadily more abusive and alcoholic by the minute. Her skin was pale, far from the luster of tan color it used to be, a color that Cheryl had once told Toni she absolutely  _ loved.  _

 

Her hand reached into her bag, wrapping concretely around the bottle of Adderall she was always armed with.

 

The audible sigh that left her mouth was ludicrous, nothing so sinister should’ve ever given her this much comfort. 

 

But, without thinking twice, she emptied two pills onto her hand and dry swallowed, watching in the mirror as her facial features relaxed. Just the knowledge of being physiologically armed with this artificial defense mechanism made her feel warm and oriented, like she could finally see straight by not being able to think straight. 

 

Toni ran a hand through her hair, soothing it back as the edges of everything became a blur again, and she knew that she could handle being around Cheryl once more. 

 

It probably should’ve been a warning sign the minute she started using her prescription drugs for more than the prescribed amount just to be able to be near Cheryl, but it didn’t strike her, and that was her first mistake. 

 

**II.**

 

“You were acting really weird at school today, are you sure you’re okay?”

 

Toni turned look at Cheryl who was currently sprawled out on her satin bed, flipping through pages of the history textbook, marking the parts where she needed to take notes. 

 

“I’m fine,” Toni replied calmly. 

 

And she was, now that the pills were finally fueling her blood and they were doing most of the thinking for her, there was nothing which could send her toppling. 

 

Cheryl didn’t respond, instead moving on to something else, something which Toni knew the girl had been keeping inside of her chest for a while now. 

 

“TT… apparently the Vixens are a big deal here, in our high school, did you know that Principal Weatherbee cuts most of the other fundings for the other programs, like that stupid Blue and Gold thing, so that he can send the vixens and the football team places?” Cheryl piqued from the beam catching Toni’s attention.

 

The Vixens had been on Cheryl’s mind for a while now, ever since they had turned thirteen and people had started telling Cheryl that she had a nice enough body to be on the cheer team, she had started looking into it. 

 

“Lemme guess,” Toni started with an amused smile. “You want to join.”

 

Cheryl grinned, her cheeks stretching and mouth opening to show off those beautiful early whites of her which she took extra care of. 

 

“Not just me, silly, I want  _ us  _ to join.”

 

Toni laughed without meaning to. 

 

“Us? Cher… I’ve got all the balance of a baby deer.”

 

“Okay fair… but you’ve got the body of an A-lister model, and that’s really all they’ll be looking for if I’m being honest. That Ethel Muggs girl tried out and she’s really good at dancing but they didn’t let her in because, well…”

 

Toni cringed. 

 

“Don’t body shame, Cher. It’s not her fault, and if she’s happy with where she is then why can’t you let her live?”

 

Betty and Veronica had taken it upon themselves to make that poor girl’s life a living hell, and like the person Cheryl had vowed to be in order to make it to the top, she took it upon herself to follow in their steps. 

 

That is, until  _ she  _ was the one making the steps. 

 

Cheryl smiled softly.

 

“You’re a sweetheart, Toni. I’m not body shaming her, I’m just telling you the reality. It doesn’t matter if you break your knees out there while trying to cheer for half a count, they’ll take you because you’d make them look good,” Cheryl pointed out. 

 

Toni gulped. 

 

The last thing she needed was an extra curricular which would require her to spend even more hours with Cheryl. 

 

Not that she minded being with Cheryl, it was more likely than not that she would be spending her time after school with Cheryl  _ anyways,  _ but she didn’t like the Cheryl who came out to play when they were surrounded by others. 

 

And Toni could already tell she especially would not like the Cheryl who would come to be when they were surrounded by other cheerleaders, the top of the top. 

 

“I don’t know, Cher…”

 

“Come on, Toni,” her best friend pleaded, crawling over to the bedside on her knees until they were facing each other. “It’ll be fun. You and me, making our dreams come true…  _ together.” _

 

Toni didn’t have the heart to tell her that they were really only her dreams. Toni didn’t want any part of this game.

 

But of course, like always, she allowed Cheryl to carry her away. 

 

“Okay. Okay, Blossom, let’s do this.” 

 

With a squeal, Cheryl launched herself off the bed, taking two giant lunges before wrapping Toni up in her arms and squeezing the girl to her chest. 

 

“I love you, I love you, I love you!” Cheryl professed, over and over again, laughing giddily. 

 

Toni felt her insides seize, those words, she would’ve given anything to hear them in a different context, but she took the breadcrumbs that she got and she ran with them, god did she run with them. 

 

She wrapped her arms around Cheryl’s midsection, absorbing the girl like she was the personification of osmosis. 

 

“I love you, Cher,” she whispered, and over the giddy laughter of her red haired best friend, she could barely even hear it. 

 

Maybe it was best that way. 

 


	5. Vixens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the chapter before the smut, this is really fucking angsty! 
> 
> But that being said, enjoy :)

**I.**

 

Toni never realized when she made the transition between sad Southside girl, ignored by all, to hot bomb ass cheerleader, wanted by all. Overnight, though, she shed the leather jacket which was a trademark of her look, for the yellow, blue, and white colors of the cheerleader outfit. 

 

The switch happened suddenly, one day she was just a high school student, and the next she was the cheerleader who was best friends with Cheryl Blossom who was steadily on her way to becoming the captain of the River Vixens, beside the co-captain, Veronica Lodge. 

 

“Don’t you think it’s amazing, Toni?” Cheryl whispered dreamily as she leaned back into Toni’s chest, the Serpent’s front pressed solidly into the Blossom’s muscular back. 

 

“Hmm?” Toni hummed, her skin burning. 

 

It had been a few hours since the drug had worn off, and she had been with Cheryl all of those hours. A peaceful Saturday, like they always spent, curled in each other, tucked away inside Cheryl’s bedroom which was the size of Toni’s entire trailer. 

 

Except, Toni itched to leave for a second, to go into the bathroom and to grab a few of those pills and drown her system. 

 

She hardly felt like she could function with Cheryl this close. 

 

“We’re so  _ looked up to,  _ Toni. No one messes with us anymore,” Cheryl spoke quietly, in awe, like she was not only telling Toni but also reminding herself of that fact. 

 

“No one messed with you anyways, Bombshell,” Toni teased with a grin. 

 

Cheryl turned back to look at her, humor glinting in her eyes, and Toni felt a smile biting her face at the unbridled happiness in her best friends eyes. She hadn’t seen Cheryl look this happy in a long time. 

 

“Yeah but don’t you feel the difference now, Toni?” Her voice came out raspy. 

 

She pointed to their cheerleading outfits heaped in a pile at the bottom of the bed, both of them having shed their second skin to cuddle in the bed in only their underwear. 

 

Toni had gawked at the barely there borderline lingerie that Cheryl was donning under the outfit, before shedding her own and revealing her comfortable Calvin Klein set which Cheryl had bought her as a random gift a few months ago. 

 

“I mean I suppose,” Toni drawled, feeling her fingers twitch as she became hyperaware once more of the fact that they were sitting there, skin to skin, melded together into one person, making it hard to figure out where one person ended and the other started. “It’s weird being like this, ya know. Veronica suddenly likes me, and apparently Betty doesn’t hate me anymore either, and they keep telling me all their secrets like I give a damn.”

 

Cheryl tensed in her arms. 

 

“They tell you things?”

 

Toni swallowed. 

 

“I-I mean yeah…”

 

She could practically feel the elation leave her best friend’s body. 

 

“Oh well… that’s good.”

 

Toni cursed herself silently for telling Cheryl that, but how was she supposed to know that these girls, these absolute monstrosities, had never so much as peeped to Cheryl about their secrets and were instead dumping them all on the girl they had relentlessly bullied in elementary school? 

 

“Apparently, Veronica lost her V card,” Toni admitted, feeling the need to indulge in this path of conversation, now that it was more than likely that Cheryl was feeling left out. 

 

Cheryl gasped, snapping her head to look at Toni behind her.

 

“That backstabbing bitch! She told me she hadn’t!”

 

“Mhm,” Toni mumbled, smiling lightly. “To Archie Andrews, and it’s this big hoopla apparently because she’s still with Nick, who’s absolutely pissed about it.”

 

And then, unlike Toni had expected Cheryl to take the bait and start sprouting nonsense about how she was going to ruin Veronica for this, the girl’s shoulders slumped. 

 

“Cher… what’s wrong?”

 

The red haired beauty bit down on her bottom lip, clearly nervous.

 

“I’ve got something to tell you, T.”

 

Toni reached over and soothed her thumb over the back of pale knuckles growing paler by the second as Cheryl gripped the duvet in her fists tightly. 

 

“Okay, go ahead, I won’t judge.”

 

“Please don’t hate me, Toni,” Cheryl whispered. 

 

_ I couldn't even if I tried.  _

 

“Just tell me what happened,” Toni prompted, beginning to feel her patience wear thin. 

 

“Do you remember last weekend, when your uncle grounded you and you weren’t allowed to come to that party Reggie Mantle was hosting?”

 

Toni nodded, her eyebrows furrowing together. 

 

“You went to it, I remember,” and then she grinned. “You told me you hated it without me there.”

 

“I  _ did,  _ T, I really did,” Cheryl sighed heavily, still not meeting Toni’s eyes. “And I did something really stupid because of that.”

 

“What did you do? Did you drink? I already know you do that, Cher, you do it right in front of me sometimes.”

 

“No, worse,” Cheryl whimpered. 

 

Her eyes finally came up to slowly meet Toni’s, both of them holding a different level of anxiety. 

 

“I slept with Nick.”

 

Four words, and Toni felt her entire soul leave her body. 

 

Her hands dropped away from Cheryl’s, whose eyes widened as she fought to keep Toni near her. 

 

Cheryl had  _ slept  _ with Nick St. Claire. She remembered that boy pretty clearly, the first time she had ever met him, he wrinkled his nose at her and turned away, instead choosing to ignore Toni and talk to Cheryl the whole time, making her feel wildly invisible. She had hated his guts then, and she hated him even more when she found out that Cheryl had started going out on  _ dates  _ with him, accepting his offers whenever he asked, only denying them when she had preplanned things with Toni. 

 

He had stolen her away from Toni at a young age, he had grabbed her affections like Toni never could, and now he had taken from Toni the one thing, that she realized with a wakeful dawning, that she had ultimately wanted for herself. 

 

“Say something, Toni, please.”

 

What could she say? 

 

She couldn’t say that she was  _ happy  _ for her, because she wasn’t. The absolute last thing Toni was right now, was happy. She felt like she could  _ die,  _ like her insides would just give up, they would just decide that they wanted to stop working because really, what was the point anymore?

 

Cheryl could not have made it any more obvious by doing this, that she wanted nothing to do with Toni in anything more than a platonic manner. 

 

“Why did you kiss me, Cheryl?” Toni growled lowly, her eyes intensely boring holes into the ground as she got off the bed and began pacing, back and forth, unbothered about the fact that she was still only in her underwear. 

 

Cheryl froze. 

 

“Why the  _ fuck  _ did you kiss me, then, Cheryl? If you had no intention of following through with it? Did you do it only to piss me off? Did you feel good about doing that? Did it make you feel nice that someone wanted you  _ that  _ much?” Toni erupted, her emotions getting the best of her as she turned to face Cheryl, who seemed taken aback. 

 

“Toni…”

 

“God, I can’t believe it… your first time and you fucking chose to do it with  _ Nick,  _ at a party of all places!”

 

“It was just supposed to be some little fun, Toni,” Cheryl argued gently, her heart clearly not in it. “It didn’t mean anything!”

 

“So what, then? You kissing me didn’t mean anything either?” Toni growled, jamming a finger into her sternum angrily. “Was that also  _ just supposed to be some little fun,  _ Cher?”

 

“It’s different with you, Toni, you know that,” Cheryl whispered, her resolve practically nonexistent now. 

 

“Is it? Is it different with me, Cheryl? I actually don’t know that because you refuse to ever tell me anything about how you feel, you kissed me once and we never talked about it again until now. I bare my soul to you and you never give me anything in return! Sometimes I wonder if you’re really even in this to be my friend or if you get some kind of kick out of taking a poor girl under your wing and then getting her high just to drop her the fuck back down.”

 

Tears were streaming steadily down Cheryl’s face now, her eyes screwed shut and her hand clutched desperately over her neck. 

 

“Toni we can never  _ be  _ what Nick and I are in public,” she gritted out. “Things are just… they just  _ are  _ with him. Do you think any of these losers would leave us alone if they found out that we have feelings for each other?”

 

“It always has to be what other people think about you, isn’t it, Cheryl?” Toni mumbled, shaking her head. 

 

For once, she was getting her feelings out, and  _ fuck  _ did it feel good. It felt good not always being Cheryl’s emotional punching bag, it felt good to finally talk about the things that were bothering her rather than pushing them back down to the depths where they came from. 

 

“In this town.. that’s what  _ matters,  _ Toni, don’t you get it? I would’ve dropped all of them for you in a heartbeat… if it was possible. I need to get out of this fucking town Toni, I have dreams bigger than Riverdale, but for me to do that, I need to have relations here, I need to make sure that people outside can see who I was and they’re willing to accept me,” Cheryl fought valiantly, her voice rising with every word she spoke. 

 

Toni scoffed. 

 

“Sleeping with Nick is going to get you exactly where you want to be, isn’t it?”

 

“I already told you what that was, Toni. It was just what it is, some fun, we were two teens, drunk at a party… things  _ happened.  _ He was mad at Veronica for some reason, which is apparent to me now, and I was upset that you weren’t there,” she pathetically rationalized. 

 

All these years, god, all these years, Toni realized, of her loving Cheryl, of her wishing and hoping that maybe Cheryl would feel the same, and now she almost wished that Cheryl  _ didn’t  _ like her. 

 

It would make the pain of not having her a little easier. 

 

“You  _ used  _ me, Cheryl.” 

 

“Toni  _ no,  _ I am so…” she gulped, squeezing her eyes shut before taking in a deep breath and opening them again. 

 

And then before Toni could even process what was happening, she watched Cheryl get up off the bed and strut over to her, only inches between their body until there was none left at all. 

 

“Cheryl…”

 

“Shh, let me show you how much you mean to me,” Cheryl whispered, resting her forehead against Toni’s. 

 

Toni’s heart squeezed in her chest, going nearly limp against her lover. She was so scared, the terror inside of her was paralyzing, and somewhere deep down, she knew that this was a bad idea, she knew that this could only lead to worse things for them, and yet somehow, with Cheryl  _ so  _ close to her, she couldn’t think straight. 

 

Thinking was for later, but for now, as Cheryl swept her up and pressed a frantic kiss to her mouth, moving her in the direction of the bed, Toni couldn’t do anything but shut her brain off. 

 

For now, she wanted to feel. 

 

Thinking was for later. 


	6. Descent Into Madness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here is the smut you all have been waiting for ladies and gents! as well as a nice good dosage of angst to fill your day with pain at the end :) enjoy!

**I.**

 

When Toni had been kissed by Cheryl on the grass by the pool all those months ago, it had been like igniting a small livewire inside of her system, burning her veins. 

 

When Cheryl kissed her now, it was like setting her entire body in fire; she might as well have been hanging like a Salem witch on trial above a pyre. 

 

Their mouths moved together in synchronized tandem, their hands reaching, grabbing, and pawing at each other’s clothes in the most feral way imaginable. Toni had never kissed anyone outside of Cheryl before regardless of the fact that she had been approached on multiple occasions by Sweet Pea, and even by Fangs once but that had just been on a dare. 

 

It wasn’t that Toni didn’t like boys, she just felt a significantly lower amount of attraction for them. Yet, that was true for anyone who wasn’t Cheryl Blossom, whether that be girl or boy. 

 

If they weren’t Cheryl, she didn’t want them. 

 

Toni, despite being rather inexperienced, felt her confidence grow with every swipe of her tongue, feeling Cheryl melt into her arms the longer they went. 

 

It was like heaven on earth, having Cheryl there, both of them dressed only in their underwear, kissing like there was no tomorrow, it made Toni’s head spin. 

 

Cheryl whimpered gently into Toni’s mouth, pushing the girl down onto the bed with a huff, detaching their mouths for a second. 

 

“God, TT,” Cheryl breathed, running her hands over tan thighs and a tight stomach. 

 

Toni heaved, her breath coming in small pants, the tug in her stomach that she began feeling pretty prominently a few months ago whenever she looked at Cheryl was now at its peak. She wanted Cheryl like she never had before, she wanted her with three fingers inside Toni, she wanted her on her knees with Toni’s fingers inside of  _ her,  _ she just  _ wanted Cheryl.  _

 

“Second thoughts, Blossom?” Toni asked, ready to lean up on her elbows and call it quits. 

 

Cheryl’s eyes snapped up to hers quickly and with arousal that she had never seen before, eyes darkened to black orbs, and there were no secrets between them anymore. 

 

“No, never, I want you so bad, Toni,” she practically moaned, before moving to straddle Toni. 

 

The shorter girl gasped at the sensation, there was very  _ very  _ little barrier between the heated center of Cheryl’s pelvis and Toni’s stomach. Her muscles flexed involuntarily at the sensation as she tried her best not to combust on the spot from having Cheryl this close to her, on top of her, their skins basically ready to form as one. 

 

Unable to help herself, Toni reached up and cupped her hands around Cheryl’s face, pulling her in and kissing her deeply. Their tongues fought for dominance, clashing and pressing, pushing and pulling, and Toni felt herself falling farther into the hole which was loving Cheryl. 

 

Could she possibly be any more of a dream? 

 

She was pure sex walking the earth, even at their young age, and Toni had never met a more intriguing girl than Cheryl herself. Even with all her demons haunting her at almost every walk of life, Toni wand to know her ins and outs, she wanted to know everyone there was to know about Cheryl Blossom. 

 

Toni gasped softly as Cheryl moved away from her mouth and down to her neck, dotting nips and kisses down the skin, leaving marks which would no doubt pose a problem for Toni in the morning. 

 

But right now, right now she didn’t care, she wanted Cheryl to mark her, fuck her, show the whole word that they were who they were and no amount of hate could ever turn them away from that. 

 

Despite herself, Toni found her fingers lingering on the exposed sides of Cheryl’s stomach, unwilling to go any further and do anything that Cheryl didn’t want her to do. 

 

“Touch me, Toni,” Cheryl whimpered, leaning in towards the girl’s ear, dripping sex. 

 

That was the last push Toni needed before she flipped them over, working herself into a squat at the edge of the bed and throwing Cheryl’s legs over her shoulders. 

 

A small gasp left the Blossom’s mouth as she felt Toni’s breath landing squarely on her most intimate spot, somewhere even Nick hadn’t put his mouth. Not because of lack of trying though, simply because she didn’t deem him worthy of having that exquisite honor; apparently she found that Toni did have the worth to do so though. 

 

Toni breathed in deeply letting Cheryl’s heady scent fill her lungs, be de forth, albeit a little hesitantly. Her tongue came forward first, licking up gently over Cheryl’s slit, gathering  _ immense  _ wetness on the muscle. 

 

“Jesus, Cher,” Toni groaned, all caution thrown out the window as she lost her mind a little. 

 

Her mouth came to close around the protruding out, calling her name, and it seemed her instincts were right when Chery rose off the bed, arching in a desperate groan. 

 

_ “Toni,”  _ Cheryl moaned, causing a pulse to jitter through Toni’s lower region, a kind of pulsation she had never felt before. 

 

It spurred her forth, her tongue dipping in and out of her best friend (oh how comical it was that she should call her that while fucking her) and drawing moan after moan out from Cheryl’s throat. 

 

“Faster, Toni, please,” Cheryl groaned, her hand reaching down to fist Toni’s hair, holding the girl hostage against her. Not that Toni was complaining, really. 

 

“Mmm, we go at my pace today, Cher,” Toni commanded, and she felt ankles lock around the back of her neck, tightly locking her in. 

 

She heard the girl huff in annoyance, clearly not used to  _ not  _ getting her way, and that made Toni smile. For all of her friendship with Cheryl, it had been the redhead calling the shots, making the first moves, whether that be the initiation of their friendship or the initiation of both of their kisses. 

 

And now,  _ now,  _ Toni got to be in charge.  

 

Her tongue flicked up and down, over and under, moving in ways that she had never imagined her tongue could even move, as she tried her level best to please Cheryl, and from the sounds that the girl was making, it was pretty evident that she was enjoying everything that Toni was doing. 

 

Feeble pleas fell from her lips as she rocked back and forth, moving as close as she could get to Toni’s mouth, chants of the tan girl’s name filling the room, dirtying it with knowledge of sinful doings. 

 

Cheryl’s taste on Toni’s tongue was maddening, she couldn’t possibly get enough, and it made Toni lose herself in her desire. Not only was it the fact that she was getting laid for the first time in her life, it was also the fact Toni could never control herself around Cheryl. And now… having the girl be so close to her, so distinctly on her tongue, Toni knew her sanity would leave her body, and she would have to drown herself in the pills. 

 

Bu it would be worth it. 

 

She could feel Cheryl getting closer with every broad stroke of her tongue, and she thirsted for more, she wished to feel her best friend fall off that precipice which she sometimes would fling herself off of, on lonely nights.

 

“Toni,” Cheryl whimpered, hands scrambling and scratching against back muscles. “Come up, babe, please.”

 

Toni licked her lips, considering for one final moment of defying Cheryl and staying down there, pushing her into a mind blowing orgasm by using her tongue only; but then she reconsidered. She realized, that she wanted to  _ see  _ her when that happened, Toni wanted to look into her eyes and know that it was her who did that. 

 

It was Toni who got to see Cheryl fall apart, and no Nick or any other boy could take that away from her. 

 

She made her way up her best friend’s body, pressing kisses on her naval, between her breasts, against her neck, and then finally, on her lips. 

 

Cheryl reached up and wrapped her arms around Toni’s neck. 

 

“You okay?” Toni asked, breathing hard, one hand wandering down to the waistband of Cheryl’s underwear, playing gently with the fringes, realizing that she had been hungry enough to not take off the offending garment and instead working her way around it. 

 

“Perfect,” Cheryl breathed out with a sigh, smiling. 

 

And for once, Toni believed her. 

 

There they were, wrapped up in each other, Toni’s fingers inches away from being inside of Cheryl, and Cheryl giving herself up willingly to the girl whom she had worked so hard to keep away from like  _ this.  _

 

Toni leaned down and pressed a kiss to Cheryl’s lips, distracting her humbly, their plump mouths playing against one another. 

 

Her hand slipped past the skimpy clothing, fingers tracing over the slit, and Cheryl whined into her mouth. 

 

“Toni,  _ please,” _ she begged, and finally, Toni gave her what she wanted, dipping her fingers forward and slipping gently into Cheryl. 

 

The redhead let out a low, guttural,  _ animalistic  _ moan, her hips bucking up into Toni’s hand as she practically rode her fingers. 

 

“Yes, Toni, yes,” she whimpered, urging Toni to go harder, and so the girl complied. 

 

Her hand pistoned back and forth, fingers curling naturally, and pulling a gasp out from Cheryl whose eyes flew wide open and met Toni’s. 

 

Toni smirked and wedged her arm more solidly between their bodies, pressing her fingers farther into Cheryl’s wet heat, thrusting back and forth, moving with liquidity that surprised her. Cheryl continued to gasp for air beneath her amongst moans and whimpers, fingers clawing at her back and leaving angry red welts in their place. Toni didn’t stop, using her hips against the back of her hand, drilling forward and using her momentum to her advantage, practically thrusting into Cheryl. 

 

“Toni,  _ oh! Yes, fuck  _ yes,” Cheryl called out like she was preaching to some higher deity, their eyes meeting, and Toni felt the girl get impossibly tighter around her. 

 

The restriction to the movement gave Toni renewed energy as she pushed through it, and Cheryl’s legs shook against her back, arms tightening around her neck.

 

“I’m- fuck, TT, I’m  _ coming.”  _

 

“I know baby, let go,” Toni whispered reassuringly in Cheryl’s ear, watching in pure awe as the girl bared her teeth, fighting back a guttural scream rising from the pit of her stomach. 

 

A high pitched whine took its place as she threw her head back and bucked her hips, thrashing wildly as Toni pinned her down with one hand and fucked her with the other. 

 

With a pained gasp, Cheryl clawed at Toni’s arm, signaling that she’d had enough, finally tapping out, and Toni stilled, letting the girl ride out the rest of her orgasm. 

 

For seconds that seemed like hours, Cheryl breathed deeply in and out, Toni massaging her walls with gentle movements, nothing that would hurt her. 

 

Finally, her breathing returned to normal, and her eyes unglued themselves, peering up at Toni through curled eyelashes. 

 

“Toni… fuck, that was-”

 

“Amazing?” Toni laughed, removing her hand gently and watching with interest as Cheryl winced a little at the movement, although still smiling. 

 

“Yeah, I guess you could call it that,” Cheryl teased with a mischievous smirk. 

 

Toni made a move to get off of the bed, away from Cheryl, because now that it was over, the clarity was coming to bite her in the ass. She was skin to skin with the love of her life, Cheryl was underneath her, looking beautiful as ever, and they’d just had  _ sex.  _

 

Right after Cheryl had basically said that it was something she simply did for fun. 

 

She probably meant nothing just like Nick had meant nothing. 

 

Only, it wasn’t over. 

 

Her back hit the mattress, a soft  _ oof  _ escaping her mouth at the impact, as she looked up at Cheryl who was back to straddling her hips. 

 

“You didn’t think you could get away from me that easily without getting back what you gave, did you?” She grinned, in that annoying sexy manner of hers. 

 

Toni gulped. 

 

Cheryl didn’t stop grinning as Toni watched her disappear from her vision, and then her underwear was gone. 

 

She sucked in a deep breath and reached down to grab Cheryl, her breath escaping her and feeling her soul departing as well. 

 

**II.**

 

Cheryl, of course, was good at what she did. 

 

Toni lay back on her bed, panting and staring up at the ceiling, both of their bodies bare, covered in thick sheens of sweat. 

 

Her skin was itching, she  _ needed  _ to get a fix. It was about time anyways, she had missed her evening dosage while doing, well, Cheryl. She needed to get away, sneak into the bathroom with her bottle of pills and down two instead of three, she needed to get rid of the immense sharp edges that infiltrated the corners of her vision; Toni wanted to numb the feelings in her heart which leaped as she remembered Cheryl breathing deeply next to her. 

 

“Jesus, I never even… I never even knew it could be that good,” Cheryl spoke with wonder coating her voice. 

 

“I take it I beat Nick, then?” Toni grinned, turning her head to look at Cheryl. 

 

The red headed beauty looked ethereal, as always, messy sex hair haloing around her head on the pillows. Her face was make up free, and her eyes, for once, were a light hazel color, completely undone and not even in the vicinity of all the demons which crowded her thoughts everyday. 

 

“Who’s Nick?” Cheryl joked, smirking. 

 

Toni mirrored the expression, flipping onto her side and facing Cheryl, their bare legs touching. Neither of them were ashamed of the fact that they were stark naked next to each other, their bodies were the last thing on their minds right now. 

 

“You look beautiful,” Toni complimented gently, reaching over to run her fingers through Cheryl’s hair which had fallen on her cheek. 

 

If it was possible, Cheryl’s eyes softened even further. 

 

“You give me too much credit, TT,” she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, but still so tangible for Toni. “You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

 

Toni felt nearly bipolar as a wave of anger came and went with ease at that sentence, aided by the thoughts of,  _ if I’m really that pretty then why won’t you acknowledge our relationship in public?  _ Which was then followed shortly by,  _ you’re so fucking selfish, Toni, she’s doing this for herself, and if you were a good friend you would understand.  _

 

“Am I staying the night?” Toni asked, her voice jittery and her hands shaky. 

 

Cheryl tensed. 

 

“We’ve never…”

 

“Yeah,” Toni gulped.

 

They’d never done this before, and now that they had, it was unclear whether or not staying the night would be crossing boundaries.

 

Somewhere deep in Toni’s mind, she hoped that Cheryl would let her stay. Not only because tonight was crucial for them, and because Toni wanted nothing more than to curl up with their bodies pressed together and their skins free of toxicity, but also because her uncle was inhabiting the trailer tonight. It was more than likely that if she returned, she would have to find some place else to stay, like Sweet Pea or Fangs’s trailer. 

 

“I want you to stay…” Cheryl trailed off, lost in thought.

 

“But you don’t think I should,” Toni finished, painfully realizing that it was true, whatever that had just transpired between them was no more than a mere moment of fun. 

 

“It’s not that, Toni,” Cheryl shook her head, sighing. Her hand came up to press circles into her temple. “I just… we can’t make a  _ thing  _ out of this. When I say that this is the most fun I’ve ever had in a long time, I mean it. I never thought that sex could ever be like that especially considering Nick couldn’t even make me… ya know… but we’re two girls, in the most rural part of New York, Toni, and word has a way of getting around.”

 

Toni sighed, annoyed and exasperated, completely tired out of her mind, in more than just the physical sense. 

 

“How would anyone ever know, Cheryl? I could keep quiet about it,” Toni grumbled, but still moving to get off the bed. 

 

“It’s not… it’s not  _ you  _ Toni,” Cheryl sighed, sitting up and remaining unashamedly bare in front of her best friend, not even picking up the sheets to cover herself. “But my parents will be here tomorrow, they’re like bloodhounds with things that they deem to be  _ sins.  _ They’ll find out one way or another and I really…  _ really  _ can’t have you here tomorrow morning. They’ll figure it out, I know they will.”

 

Toni bit her lip and slipped into her clothes, the discarded cheer outfit which was lying by the foot of the bed. 

 

“I know your parents are homophobes, Cher,” Toni whispered, shoving a hand through her hair and combing out the unruly knots she had gathered from rolling around on the bed with Cheryl all day. “But… do we really have to do this like  _ this? _ ” 

 

Toni felt her heart drop to the pit of her stomach when walls came up behind her lover’s eyes. Those same walls that she had spent years getting behind, those very walls that Toni had thought she demolished today as she fucked Cheryl into oblivion, they were back up.

 

“I’m not gay, Toni. I can’t give you what you want.”

 

Toni scoffed, her hand going limp as she waited to sling her bag onto her shoulder. 

 

“You’re not  _ straight  _ if you enjoyed what we just did, Cheryl.”

 

Cheryl swallowed and looked away, which was enough of an answer for Toni. 

 

At least she could leave the Manor and then shove two pills down her throat and numb the feelings for now. She could do that, she  _ had  _ to do that, or the image of Cheryl sitting naked in her bed, her breasts right in front of Toni’s face, or the memory of the sound Cheryl made when she released herself all over Toni’s hand… they would never leave her mind. 

 

The last thing Toni needed tonight was a constant reminder of the girl who was hurting her so very much. 

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Cheryl,” Toni whispered, reaching down to grab her bag. 

 

“Don’t be mad, Toni, please,” Cheryl practically begged from the bed as she watched the tan girl make her way over to the door. “We’re best friends, we can’t let this change anything between us.”

 

Toni paused as she reached over to the handle, her insides flaring and crying, yelling and beating on her bones. Even though everything in her refused, told her to do the exact opposite of what she was doing, Toni turned to face Cheryl one last time. 

 

“Everything’s  _ already  _ changed, Cher, don’t you see that?” Toni prompted, her own desperation beginning to show. “We’ve never been  _ just friends  _ or you wouldn’t have kissed me this summer. You and I are like… two fucking peas in a pod, Blossom, don’t you see that?”

 

Cheryl blinked from her perch on the bed. 

 

“I’m not gay,” she reiterated. 

 

It was starting to lose its meaning. 

 

“Maybe if you say that enough times you’ll start believing it,” Toni sighed finally, shaking her head. “I really can’t deal with this tonight, I’ll see you tomorrow, Cheryl.”

 

And with that, she slipped out the door, listening to the oak fixture shut heavily behind her, barring Cheryl away from Toni like their own mental barriers already did. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed that! Leave kudos and comments are always appreciated! 
> 
> Follow me on twitter if you want, @topmetopaz


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